Exotic Fair of a Wandering Muse

February ERWA Guest Author

Angela Caperton — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:52:40 GMT

I’m very happy to have been chosen as the Writer of the Month on the website of the Erotica Readers and Writers Association (ERWA). Posted there you will find my biography, and three of my stories, which will be available throughout February. My deepest thanks to the wonderful folks at ERWA for this honor!

As I’ve said a few times before, writing a good story is its own reward. The kick I get from polishing the last draft of a story I know is a good one is better than a bottle of fine wine. Although I’ve sold enough stories and books now that I should be accustomed to the afterglow of a sale, it’s still a thrill when I get an acceptance e-mail and a disappointment when one of my stories doesn’t make the cut.

I’m not a particularly social writer. I’ve yet to go to a convention or symposium or sign a book in person to a reader. I have met a couple of my writing peers and those meetings have been utterly delightful! My output on the two blogs I contribute to, my Tweets, and Facebook posts – all these things are pretty sparse compared to the socializing of other authors. I can’t lie; I don’t have a talent for that aspect of the business. What I hope is that my work speaks for me.

Since most of my writing is done in near isolation, the recognition of being chosen as the Writer of the Month for the Erotica Readers and Writers Association is a tremendous boost. When I first started out trying to write classy smut, the ERWA was the most important resource for my efforts. Now, I am humbled and grateful to find myself featured on their wonderful website, which, in combination with their e-mail lists, still provides the best resource in the world for anyone who wants to write and market erotic fiction, and for readers, the site is a goldmine of consistently smart, well-written erotica.

Calendar Girl” was first published in Peep Show and then I was delighted to have it selected by Maxim Jakubowski for the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 10. It is also available as a podcast on Nobilis Reed’s incredible site Nobilis Erotica. I write a lot of stories set in past time periods. “Calendar Girl” gave me a chance to play with the cultural calm just before the sexual storm of the 1960s and to write about the world of camera clubs and pin-up models.

“Timbre”, which was originally published in Best Women’s Erotica 2010 (edited by the amazing Violet Blue) is one of my favorite stories from the past few years (and one that I think might make a great podcast too! –nudge, nudge-). As contemporary erotica, “Timbre” is a little out of the ordinary …you might call it a story about aural sex.

Finally, “Ninth Wave” is a new, unpublished story and an example of my darker work that has found homes with Circlet Press, Renaissance eBooks, and other publishers of supernatural and SF-themed erotica.

Once again, a huge thank you to my editors, publishers, friends, and readers who have helped me to this point. I really hope you like what I write, because there’s a lot more to come!

They Like Me! They Really Like Me!

Angela Caperton — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:21:40 GMT

Regular readers of this blog know that the conventions of writing genre fiction are endlessly fascinating to me. I always find my time well spent trying to understand them, since they directly affect the likelihood of me placing any given story with an editor. And maybe my musings will be helpful to other writers.

I’ll have some fun announcements here in a week or so, and one of the stories I’ll be talking about – and that will be available to read free online – is an erotic tale called “The Ninth Wave.” Writing that story and my initial attempt at marketing it (to an editor who objected to an absence of sympathetic characters) led me to think about a factor in genre writing that I really had not considered before – the likeability of characters.

Since I came to erotica from a background of reading romances, most of my early stories featured “nice” protagonists. Writing my novel, Woman of the Mountain, I struggled constantly with making my heroes as interesting as my villains. Reading more erotica and drawing more on other traditions of genre literature – horror and noir fiction in particular -- has given me more comfort in writing about characters who are not good people at all, but it sometimes creates clashes with the editorial vision of desired markets.

Characters should of course be “interesting,” but there is no more subjective a word in the English language. Conventional dramatic theory also holds that, in a properly constructed tale, a character will undergo a change in the course of the telling. In classic literature, change often takes the form of moral reform – a flawed man who learns the virtues of heroism, a weak woman who discovers strength through love – and this trajectory is still common in many modern works, especially romance. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with this value system, if the story can still be told with a fresh voice or viewpoint.

The values that make a character “good” or at least that make a character one a reader can identify with, become even more complicated in erotica. For example, the narrator of “Pet Door” in Girls Who Bite is extremely submissive. Whether a particular reader finds her likeable is likely to be directly related to the reader’s own attitude toward submissiveness. A reader without an empathic understanding of submission may find her weak or even creepy, while a submissive reader may identify with her, and a dominant reader may find her an object of desire.

Increasingly, as I hope my readers know, I am writing stories that are unconcerned with genre and I am facing the fact that selling them is going to be harder (though I am certainly pleased with recent successes!). Being mindful of the likeability of my characters is another checkpoint now when I populate a story. It is always worth asking myself the questions, “Who will like this man?” “Why will a reader care about this woman?” “What’s useful about the flawed parts of her nature?””How important is it that she improve her flaws over the course of the narrative?”

My answers to these questions will flesh out the characters I create. More fully dimensioned characters will certainly improve my stories, no matter what other genre conventions I’m violating.

After all, a good character can make any transgression just that much more attractive…

Springs and Videogame Sexuality

Angela Caperton — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 22:52:10 GMT

Can a video game be sexy? Movies, stories, paintings, photographs -we have tens of thousands of examples, arousal for every taste, from every stage in human history. Video games are the entertainment art form of our day, and while sex is not an overt selling point, it has played a role, from Leisure Suit Larry to virtual worlds where explicit sex is the specialty. The history of sexualizing video games follow the path of computerized entertainment - from low rez strip poker games back in the Commodore 64 era to multiplayer “adult” environments on Second Life and beyond. Sex and video games however are not commonly associated.

My novelette Springs – just published in a new edition by Renaissance e-books – is one of several stories I’ve written about virtual worlds and sexuality and I feel sure it is a theme I will return to, because I’m fascinated by the possibilities. Springs is the story of Cherie, a smart young woman working in the “man’s world” of a video game studio. She’s a musician and sound designer for a “survival horror” game – like Resident Evil, for those who may not know the genre otherwise. Amused by the adolescent fantasies inherent in the game, she sets out to make an artistic contribution to the product but finds herself with a severe case of composer’s block.

Inspiration comes in the form of an antique music box. Music boxes are early examples of binary media, like difference engines and mechanical calculators but aimed at the stimulation of aesthetic sensibilities, so the line between the old media and the new is rich with promise. Cherie soon discovers that the box is a little window into a past world of the darkest sorcery, into a history of obsession and murder -- timeless themes, musical and otherwise.

When I was thinking about this blog entry, I remembered Marshall McLuhan, of all people, a 20th Century philosopher whose work was, at one time, on the cutting edge of communications theory. McLuhan was one of the first thinkers to explore the idea that our media are the extensions of our senses. He’s probably best remembered as the guy who said “The Medium is the Message.” When I looked him up, I was surprised to discover that today is the 31st anniversary of his death. He passed in 1980, at the dawn of an age when unimaginable extensions of ourselves became woven fabrics in an electronic space as big as the world.

So, I’d like to unofficially dedicate Springs to Marshall McLuhan, who probably helped inspire it. Cherie would understand. So would Marshall, I think.

Please enjoy this excerpt of Springs:

The box, only a little longer than the length of her hand, weighed more than she expected. Solid, she figured. Good wood and craftsmanship from another age, another world. No Chinese slave labor crap here. She examined the repeated design, the hypnotic swirl and sinuous curve of the pattern.

Something small and hard rattled softly inside the box. She imagined it cushioned by velvet.

A simple metal catch held the lacquered lid closed and she flipped it open.

When she raised the lid, she heard a click. What sounded like a mournful sigh escaped the box and then it began to sing. A chiming tone, deep and dark. Scriabin, she thought, or the metal skeleton of some Mahler piece she didn’t recognize, sonorous and slow, each note pure and dark.

Soft brown leather lined the black wood, and in the center of the pleated bottom lay the box’s winding key. She realized the second finger of her left hand rested on the hole where the key fit and the box’s hidden mechanism wound, where it had already been wound by whoever had wrapped it and left it for her to find.

The black enamel key curved suggestively to a tarnished metal tip.

Cherie smiled, and then snorted at the perfect gift. She lost herself for a moment in the run of notes, more beautiful and intricate than any music box tune she’d ever heard. The tune resonated, steel within dense wood, compelling and brooding.

“Who the fuck gave me this?” she whispered as she closed the lid. Cherie retrieved the outer box, looked for a card, and found nothing. She gently tilted the music box to see if the giver had put the card on the bottom.

She found no card, but did find what she assumed was the maker’s mark—an ornate “G” and the numbers “97”.

From beyond the glass wall, sudden light flooded the outer office. Shit. Someone else had arrived. Early, she thought. The sun still wasn’t up.

She sensed a loss of time, as though the box had stolen thirty minutes from her, or a precious hour. She flipped it open, picked up the key, and in spite of the cool metal tip, she found it light. The tune began listlessly and she shut the lid again. She fit the key and wound the box, almost tight.

She set it beside her Mac and lifted the lid.

Ting, ting, ting.

“What’s that?” Matt stood over her.

Where had he come from?

The music wrapped Cherie in bands of sensation and germinated inside her.

She stood up and faced her boss. He wore a black t-shirt from Red Dreams, a rival game studio, and a pair of white jeans. Matt smiled a little uncertainly as he watched the box.

Ting, ting, ting, ting.

Close enough to smell his morning toothpaste breath, she put her hand on his bicep. Lean and muscular. Yes, just how she liked them.

Half the boys who worked at Splatterday Morning had never even been kissed. Many of the others were married—probably to the only girl they’d ever gotten to first base with.

Matt? She’d never figured him out. He had an easy confidence that she liked and usually when she thought about fucking someone from the office, she thought about Matt.

Time to find out how reality measured up to fantasy.

He didn’t resist as she took off his shirt, just looked down at her with an amused, slightly dazed smile. Cherie turned off the Tiffany lamps so that only her monitor lit the room. She leaned forward and bit Matt on his chest, just below his right nipple. He laughed and put his hands on her arms, gently, as though she might break.

Impatient, she bit him again, daring him with sharp teeth. She shed her jacket in a flash and raked her nails across his stomach on the way to his belt.

The music gained urgency, the spring unwinding faster.

She freed his cock and grinned with delight…

Copyright 2011 Angela Caperton. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

A Gift for Santa - Happy Holidays!

Angela Caperton — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 02:20:26 GMT

All the very sexy best this holiday season.

I hope you enjoy this poem I wrote a couple years ago.

Enjoy, be safe and I'll see you on the other side of the New Year!

A Gift for Santa
Copyright 2009 Angela Caperton

One year as Christmas Eve drew near
My husband said, “Consider, dear,”
How hard old Santa works to bring
His gifts and toys and everything;
Displays of thoughtful, loving care --
The least a man can do is share.”

“This year instead of treats and milk
I’ll leave you bound with ribbon silk,
And let the old elf take his play
With my Mary’s winsome way.
What say you, sweet wife of mine?
Shall this be Mary Christmas time?”

“Of course,” I said, “If I can aid
Santa Claus in his yearly trade,
Then bind me with red ribbon silk
Around my body pale as milk,
And leave me for the Christmas elf,
And I may get a gift myself!”

So, upon that pre-Yule night,
Hubby tied me nice and tight,
Spread beneath the Christmas tree,
Offered up for Kris to see,
Bare above and bare below
Except a silken, scarlet bow.

Dependable as egg nog rum,
Down the chimney St Nick come,
Looked about for milk and cookie
Spied instead the offered nookie,
Laid a finger ‘side his nose
And quickly doffed his Santa clothes.

I have to say I had not thunk
That Santa would be such a hunk.
Driving sleighs must give him strength;
His beard is not his only length,
Nor is his frisky, agile tongue,
No, by the chimney, he was hung!

With lips and teeth he loosed my bow
While whiskers tickled down below
His feasting made me cry with joy
A gift much nicer than a toy.
Then leaving me still silken tied,
Santa showed me how to ride.

‘Round the world in a single night
Oh how we made the treetops light!
Dasher, dancer, prancer, dear,
A comet I saw crystal clear!
Bright blitzen, hot and flashing high,
And donner in our coupled cry.

They say there’s magic in the Yule
Midwinter time, bright spirits rule.
And there was I, the offering
To guarantee the gift of spring.
With mischief in his twinkling eye
Santa kissed my clit goodbye.

Then giving me a single rose,
He donned again his wooly clothes.
Paused beside the dark fireplace
A naughty grin upon his face.
“Now you and hubby please yourselves,
And next year I may bring my elves.”

Then up the chimney he did go,
And I lay bound in afterglow,
Till hubby came and me untied
Took me up like a new bride,
And we made love in every way
To celebrate our Christmas Day.

Winter Heat - Excerpt from "Löyly"

Angela Caperton — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:29:21 GMT

There’s something sensual and erotic about bodies bound together by tendrils of steam, about pressed flesh that burns defiantly against the wind and snows of Winter. During this time of year when we might find the close proximity of sweatered crowds oppressive as we drag through malls shopping for the holidays, take a break and enjoy a different kind of heat, a more satisfying flagellation than that provided by biting anxiety driven by seasonal obligations.

Löyly is Finnish for ‘spirit’ and also for the steam that is produced by water sprinkled on hot rocks in a sauna (the other Finnish invention-predating Nokia cell phone technology!). There’s a reason for the dual meaning, and if you’ve ever enjoyed a true Finnish sauna, you understand the harmony and freedom found in the steam and in the birch-branch flagellation that opens the pores and the soul, and fills the air with fragrant delight.

“Löyly” is the opening story in Smooth: Erotic Stories for Women, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. I hope you enjoy the excerpt. If you do, I bet you’ll like the entire anthology.

Excerpt from "Löyly"
By Angela Caperton
Published in Smooth: Erotic Stories for Women
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Copyright 2010

I swam for an hour then I dragged my pruned body out of the pool, showered in the little changing room, and stepped back out on the deck to stand transfixed by the vista beyond the foggy windows. While annoyed by the shitty weather, I loved the beauty and serenity of the snowfall. The large flakes drifted down completely at the whim of whatever wind might blow. Some fell heavy, wet, like obese calcified raindrops, others drifted to the ground in intricate Zen paths.

The perfect blanket over the ground amazed me. Painted green, the smoothness of the carpet would have been the envy of Augusta National.

Except for the quickly filling divots leading off into the veil. Footprints made not long ago, headed toward what?

The sauna. Someone apparently had a GPS and had found the temple of Sorrow Cove.

The grin started in my belly, and without a moment’s analysis, I wrapped my robe around myself, scuffed on my rubber clogs and found the door leading outside. The blast of cold air almost made me run back to my room, but I had to do this, I had to beat the elements, had to take control of the vacation I’d never wanted but had inherited. If this trip was going to have any meaning, I needed to make it my own – not let it stay Jeff’s irrelevancy.

The snow kissed my hair and clung to my robe, the cold air keeping it from melting right away. My breath sprayed in front of me like fueled smoke as I squinted against the fall to focus on the little shack, the destination of the quickly filling tracks.

When I reached the little building, I pulled the door open, praying I’d not find hedge trimmers and jugs of pesticide. My prayers were answered with a vision -- glorious, living sculpture.

Rodin. Michelangelo.

Sculpted thighs, corded arms, pecs, abs, a brooding countenance.

And not one beautiful inch concealed by clothing.

“The door. You let the steam out.”

Steam? Out? No, I thought as I let the closing door slap me in the butt. All the steam must be in here, boiling my blood, peaking my heartbeat. Surely I was producing enough heat now to replace any that had escaped in smoky plumes through the open door.

Naked. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize—” I turned quickly, fumbling for the door latch.

“No, please stay.” Not the Yooper accent of the locals. Dutch, maybe? “Welcome.”

Beyond the door – snow and another gutter ball on the score card. I could do this. I had to do this.

I turned back around and smiled, feeling a little foolish as Adonis pulled a towel over his groin. Damn.

He jutted his chin toward the wall and I saw a row of wooden pegs. A thick moss-green robe hung from one of the pegs and I quickly removed my own robe and hung it beside his.

The small room was completely made of wood – smooth slats of cedar covered the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the two-level bench. Adonis sat at one end of the lower bench beside what looked like a stove filled with large grey and brown rocks. A bucket of water sat at his feet.

He leaned over and dipped a ladle into the water and looked over his shoulder at me. “Sit,” he nodded to the bench. I tried to look casual as I took a seat a comfortable distance from him and watched as he poured the water over the rocks.

Steam rose from the hot stones, quickly dissipating. Heat bloomed in the room and I found myself smiling.

Adonis sat back on the bench and looked at me. Small beads of sweat glistened on his upper lip. What would he do if I offered to lick the sweat off? He reached out a long-fingered hand. “I am Matias. Matias Toskala.”

I grinned and gripped his hand in a polite shake. “Andie Fortner.” Naked. Only a tenuous scrap of terry stood between us. “I’m really sorry about barging in. I didn’t know,” my voice trailed off as my cheeks burned.

“I was not expecting anyone else, but it is okay. Naked is best for sauna.” He brushed long light brown bangs from his forehead.

“It is?” Smooth, Andie.

“Tradition. Back home, saunas are enjoyed bare, though not often men and women together.”

“Where’s home?”

“Helsinki, Finland. I teach at university and am here to lecture at the school in Hancock.”

“I’d say you’re a long way from home but considering the weather and the fact that we’re in a sauna, I guess I’m the alien here.” If my accent didn’t scream Dixie draft, Dolly Parton would weep.

He laughed softly, his smile genuine and disarming. “Do you know about saunas?”

“I know they’re hot, and make you sweat, but that’s about all – oh, and that they are best experienced naked.” I said with a grin.

Naked. He wasn’t putting the moves on me, and he was comfortable with his own nakedness. What the hell? I’d dashed through a blizzard to reach this shack, and if a real live Finn was telling me naked was the way to go, well tan lines be damned, naked was what I was going to be.

If my knees would hold me up.

I stood and slid the straps of my one piece off my shoulders and in a momentary flood of courage, peeled the wet material off my body in one hopefully graceful movement. I waited for the high school marching band to burst through the doors and seal my embarrassment, but it didn’t happen. Instead, the shock of my spontaneity melted like butter into an odd ease. I walked back over to the peg where my robe hung, and deposited my suit. It was the turning back around and walking the two steps to my towel that seemed unreasonable.

Deep breath, racing heart, I made that turn and took my seat again. I looked at Matias with a broad smile. He was watching me, all of me, but there was no leer in his eyes, just calm appraisal.

“So, naked’s best. What else about saunas?”

His eyebrow quirked, but his face remained passive. He took up the ladle again and poured more water over the stones. There was a little mist, but the steam quickly filled the room with more heat. “That is löyly – steam – but it means more. Löyly is also spirit.”

“The sauna has a spirit?”

“It can be said, yes.” He poured another ladle over the rocks. As the heat washed over me, my bones turned to putty and every pore in my skin sighed.

I smiled. Better spirit than the bourbon I drank the night before.

Matias moved his towel aside. I tried not to stare but his cock bounced attractively as he rose from his seat. Reaching to the wall, he took what appeared to be a small tree limb from its hook. On the long branches, bright green leaves shone with moisture. “This is a vihta – birch leaves. We beat the skin with the branches.”

“Beat?”

He gave the gathered branches a little shake, then stretched across his opposite shoulder to swat his back. More attractive bouncing and I really had to resist reaching out to touch him.

“They stimulate the skin,” he held the branches out to me.

“Okay,” I said without much conviction, but hey, in for a penny, in for a pound.

I tried to wrap my hand around the gathered stems, but the individual thin branches seemed determined to flop their own way in spite of the straw binding at the base.

He chuckled again and reached for the branches. “Here,” he said, taking the vihta in a masterful hand that had the branches sliding into submission. He dipped the leaves into another bucket of water then smiled at me. “Turn away, and pull your hair back. You will see.”

See what, I wondered as I did as he said. Naked and alone with a naked man about to be flayed with a tree. I could see the postcard to my mother now.

Blood pounded in my veins and pooled suspiciously in my belly. Anticipation added an edge of tension and vulnerability before the bright shock of the strike. It wasn’t hard, but the leaves laced my skin with firm control, a lush wetness and a shimmer of sting that slashed my back with an awakening charge of delight. I closed my eyes, savoring the moment, the fresh scent of the birch binding me in a cloud of awareness and newfound sensation.

The second strike layered the first, a few leaf tips stroking the backs of my arms and the nape of my exposed neck. The rich cream of arousal mixed with wonder as the birch blessed my skin. My back warmed further, the skin made new with the sharp, green kisses. My mind drifted, like it did after too much wine, and I arched like a cat, my back bowed to invite the next strike, the tender flesh over my ribs and sides of my breasts exposed.

Beads of perspiration and condensation trickled down my sides, under my breasts, and my pussy, exposed to the steam of the sauna, to this bizarre, otherworldly moment, swelled and slicked.

Every inch of my skin hummed with the heat and humidity of the sauna and my mind became the fulcrum between my body and my soul. Desire coursed through me, my pussy anticipating the next strike of the birch with a heartbeat pulse that nearly melted me, my breath matched the rolling press of air, water, and fire.

The next strike sliced my upper back, light nettles bolting sensation from the side of my right breast directly to the untouched nipple. I imagined Mathias’ teeth clamping on the nub, sucking at the nipple, cupping the weight and branding me with his tongue.

I needed his cock. I wanted him in the most savage, most basic way a man and woman connected. I needed him to fuck me. He beat me after all. I willingly sat in this little hut of wet fire and let him strike me with sticks. His balls slapping my ass didn’t seem a stretch.

I leaned far forward, my arms trembling, my breath a rush in my ears, and the birch fell again twice, rapid, the second harder than the first and lashing just across the crack of my ass. Nerves raw, flayed to the feverish temperature of the sauna, the last across the small of my back and the top of my ass tossed me to the edge of orgasm.

I moaned. I barely heard it above the ringing pulse in my ears, my lips, my pussy, but the sound rattled off the wood walls of the sauna.

I dripped from my nose, my arms, my chin, my sex. Every inch of me bloomed and reached, seeking, yet full as I plumped with liquid fire even as I released, renewed, revived. Jeff’s dismissal, my mundane job, the honest absurdity of my being in Michigan in November all faded comfortably into the realm of the inconsequential. All that mattered was the sure pulse of my blood, the heavy drop of my heart, the electric thrill of my nerves. Water collected on my skin, housed me, cleansed me, invigorated me, and I, for the first time in my life, felt everything.

Copyright 2010 Angela Caperton. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

Horror or not? - Salamander

Angela Caperton — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:25:17 GMT

In a recent discussion of the different approaches to writing “horror,” I remembered this story that I wrote for an anthology a couple of years ago. I ended up selling them another tale, but they rejected this one, although they liked it very much. I’ll tell you the reason after the story:

"Salamander"
by Angela Caperton
Copyright 2009

Here and there, the bricks still glowed, smoldering red clay in the deepening dusk.

Shelley watched the blackened expanse where a house had stood for over one hundred years, right up to that afternoon. Her first day with the crew, the only woman in a 12-person volunteer fire brigade serving the tiny community of Deerbourn. Her luck her first fire turned out to be the old Adler house.

“I’m glad we’re too late,” Bubba Driscoll said as they watched the roof give way and fall incandescently inward. “Fucking place should’ve been burned years ago.” Bubba, as always, stood too near Shelley. He smelled like cheese.

Everyone knew about the Adler house. Back in the 80s, Gus Adler killed five people over two years’ time, abducting them, bringing them here and torturing them to death. Shelley grew up on horror stories about Gus Adler. Some people said he had accomplices who were never caught.

The crew made sure the fire couldn’t spread, cutting trees, soaking the perimeter. The house burned beyond salvation, slowly imploding in showers of sparks and billowing black smoke.

“Someone has to stay here and watch it,” Deak Howell said.

“New girl gets the job,” Tom Skaggs said and all of them laughed.

“You ain’t gonna be too scared, are you?” someone asked.

Bubba offered to stay and keep her company.

“Better stay till at least … oh, midnight.”

Pigs. Every fucking one of them. Assholes.

She sat in the truck mostly, but every half hour, she walked around the blackened square of smoking timber, hearing nightbirds, insects, the thrum of distant highway traffic.

She fell asleep once and awakened to the sound of shuffling footsteps. She went for the gun she had stuffed in the glove compartment and the flashlight. She threw open the door and spotlighted the sound – a dull-eyed, blinking armadillo.

Laughing, she climbed out of the truck and watched the little mammal-tank scurry back into the brush. Stupid to be scared, she thought. She’d show Bubba and the other jerks. She almost hoped one of them would try to sneak up on her and scare her. Blowing Deak’s balls off might improve her mood.

Even the worst Gus Adler stories didn’t scare Shelley. Some people said that he had sacrificed those five people, and maybe more, to what he called the God of Fire and that there were still people in Deerbourn who worshiped the God of Fire. Maybe the goddamned volunteer fire department, she mused and laughed.

Then her laughter froze.

An oily shape moved among the ashes, twisted and red. A trick? No, Bubba and the others could never devise this.

The shape curled into a man. She aimed the flashlight at him and held the gun ready. In the beam, his skin shone dully, the color of burnt brick.

“Tell me,” he asked in a smoky, promising whisper. “Just how much do you hate those assholes?”

**
Although the anthology was calling for horror stories, the editors were adamant that the horror could not include any supernatural elements. The interesting thing was, in their call for submissions, they didn’t specify this because, to their minds, horror and supernatural horror were two different things! There's no doubt about it, genre is a funny thing....

Stella Goes Abroad

Angela Caperton — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:03:41 GMT

I’m still new enough to this business of writing and selling stories that I still get a real thrill at the news that one of my publishers, Circlet Press, has sold foreign rights to one of my stories. My novel Man’s World has been picked up for a German edition, and I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about that. I’ve had one previous story, “Understudy”, sold to a foreign publisher as part of the anthology Lust at First Bite, so this isn’t entirely unprecedented, but this time it’s all my words that are wanted across the Atlantic!

I read and speak a little German, so I am very excited to see how this turns out. Man’s World is one of the few science fiction stories I’ve written and it seems to me that translating SF must take special skills. In a genre that is already full of made-up words, what must a translator do to re-imagine a word, retain the meaning, then very likely make up yet another new word?

Man’s World is the story of Stella Blue Darter, an interstellar working girl who decides to ditch the game and seek her fortunes anywhere she can land. Fate sends her to Moulton, a planet founded along the tenets of a very strange philosophy. Her adventures in the world of the Fumblars, the Debs, and the Scions create a fun, and I hope, a hot interstellar romp!

Here’s an excerpt from the American edition:

Then light battered her eyelids, brighter than sunlight, and a harsh voice racked her nerves.

“Police. Stand up and put your hands where we can see them.”

Harker’s wonderful heat went away and Stella forced her eyes to open. She would have known the men were cops even if they hadn’t identified themselves or hadn’t been wearing slate gray, military styled uniforms.

Harker obeyed them and Stella figured she should too. She slid off the hood, careful to keep her hands in sight, though the cops couldn’t possibly have worried about concealed weapons on either of them. At first she couldn’t imagine where the officers had come from and then she realized their vehicle hovered only a short distance away, just at the edge of the cliff that overlooked the roaring river below. The craft seemed to be spun of glass or gossamer, completely transparent and powered by a small, whisper-quiet whirling blade. They had come either from above or below and probably had a good view of the action before they debarked and announced themselves. She hoped they had at least been entertained.

One of the men was older and he shined his light on Stella like a spotlight lingering on a stripper. His younger partner seemed more interested in Harker.

“Run ‘em, Dextro,” the older guy said and the younger cop stuck Harker’s hip with a tiny needle attached by a wire to a pod on his belt. Then he stuck Stella, though she hardly felt it.

“Got him, Sarge,” Dextro said, reading his pod. “Harker Merman of the National Petroleum Mermans. Second son. Offworld until about three months ago. Clean.”

“Who’s the slit?”

“No record. Offworlder not in the database.”

The older officer examined the reading on his own pod and Bo seized the moment to flow up Stella’s ankles and cover her in a modest jumper.

Sarge wasn’t happy when his attention returned to her. “The fuck? I told you not to move.”

“I saw it,” Dextro said. “It’s one of them smart dresses.”

The old cop huffed. He looked at Harker and growled, “Get your pants on.” This time Dextro’s disappointment flowered as Harker found his pants and pulled them on.

“You’re in big trouble, Merman,” the sergeant said. “Apart from public indecency, you got a woman here, and an unregistered one at that.”

“We’re from the cotillion,” he said.

“She’s too pretty for a cotillion girl.”

Harker shrugged. “You want to mess with cotillion business, that’s your affair. Arrest us if that’s what you want to do.”

Sarge considered. “I can’t just let you go.”

“How about we give each of ‘em a chance to pay their fine, Sarge. You know what I mean.”

“No fucking way,” Stella said, pinning Sarge with an icy stare. “I’d rather eat roc-lite.”

“How about you tell me how many credits the fine is, officer,” Harker offered. “and I’ll pay you. Save us all some time.”

“Four thousand ought to cover it,” the sergeant said. “If you don’t have it all, you can work something out with Dextro here.”

Harker fished in his pocket and produced a sheaf of bills. He started to count them and Sarge snatched them out of his hand. “I trust you,” he said.

Harker bristled but the younger cop had drawn a weapon.

“Be glad I’m feeling generous tonight, Merman. I could keep your money, claim you stumbled into the falls trying to run away, and keep the girl for myself. For awhile, at least. Now you better get your asses back to the cotillion before I change my mind.”

They mounted the crystalline flyer without looking and it rose rapidly and silently into the air. Looking up, Stella realized the cops’ gray uniforms blended perfectly with the night sky and that their presence overhead was only revealed by an absence of stars.

Harker picked up his shirt but didn’t wear it. They drove back down the mountain toward the city, silent at first, tense from a narrow escape. “Tell me about that dress of yours,” he said, when they had both calmed a little.

“Bo?”

“It has a name?”

“She’s a Beau Brummel plesomesh. Nanotech. Basically a swarm of tiny harvesters and synthesizers with a distributed brain.”

“Can it .. she … make anything you think of?”

“No, she’s programmed for designs and accessories. Her memory is crammed full with designs and soft sense. Without an uplink, she can learn behavior but not new fashions.”

He laughed. “Sounds like half the wives in Scion City. How does she make the fabric?”

“The harvesters are constantly picking up substances from the environment, atoms of this and that, dead skin cells from me.” She laughed. “She’s probably got something of yours now too. All the stuff she collects can be resynthed and she tries to re-use whatever she can.”

“Yeah, I noticed back there that the clothes I took off you vanished when she dressed you again.”

“Bo is a little miracle of efficiency. Wish she could give me lessons.”

“What did she cost you?”

Stella told him and he whistled. “You could buy half of Fumblar for that.”

“Best fortune I ever spent,” she said and laughed, but the laughter faded fast. Harker pulled back into the packed parking lot by the dancehall, returning to the very space they had left. They walked quietly toward the door and Stella cast one last look up at the night sky, but the view up there had been ruined with clouds.

**

Also, I’m very excited to announce that my lesbian shape shifter story “Sweetwater Pass” will be in the upcoming Cleis anthology She-Shifters. “Sweetwater Pass” is the story of a young woman traveling across the American frontier and her encounter with a Native American spirit. Look for She-Shifters in 2012!

Occupy Erotica!!

Angela Caperton — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 21:21:35 GMT

I worry about those OWS participants on the New York streets with winter on its way, but I sure do admire them too. I’m not an especially political person, but anyone who really looks at the distribution of wealth in the United States can see there is a terrible, widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. I’m sure I would have some points of disagreement with some of the occupiers, but I appreciate them speaking out for economic balance.

So, when Alessia Brio of the Coming Together philanthropic anthologies opened her call for stories for her collection Occupy Coming Together, I had to find a story to contribute to the cause. The Coming Together books are a wonderful way to raise some bucks for good causes. Among the causes that they have supported are Conservation International and Autism Speaks among other causes. I recently contributed a story “Lawman” to the collection Coming Together: In Flux, in support of the Woodhull Foundation, and am delighted now to have “Playing the Market” as a stand-alone to help the Occupy movement feed the occupiers during their days and weeks in the streets and parks of our cities.

I wrote “Playing the Market” back in 2008, not long after the financial meltdown in the mortgage and banking industry. It’s the story of Jessie, a bond trader, who loses her job in the backwash of impending recession. Left with nothing, she decides to leverage the assets remaining to her – good looks and an adventurous nature – and pursue a new type of investment.

Here’s how she starts her career:

Excerpt of
"Playing the Market"
by Angela Caperton

How the fuck am I going to pay the rent? She thought again and smiled, turning at the bar to scan the big, smoky room, full of tables and people. Funny thing. Ever since the world went to shit, nobody paid much attention to the smoking ordinance. Jessie had never been in Waxy’s before and she wondered if the crowd was typical, a little older than the places she usually went, better dressed, like the downturn hadn’t hit them as hard yet.

She crossed her legs, smoothing her stocking, shoulders back, chin up, looking for the right guy. A gray-haired, fat man in a Lauren sweater tried to catch her eye but she pretended she didn’t see him.

God, she felt like she was back in high school as she looked over the boys, knowing exactly what she wanted from them. She had standards even then, and she prided herself on being picky until she found the right one. Tonight was no different. She knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted five hundred dollars to make her rent.

She knew Waxy’s management would frown upon her new profession but Jessie knew if her plan was to succeed, she needed to be in a place where men had money. She remembered the punchline of an old joke. Which one of the cheap bastards gave you a quarter? All of them.

No. One time. One good fuck with a guy she might have slept with anyway and she would never do this again. She just needed a stop gap.

She shifted on her stool, letting her skirt ride up just a little, not slutty but casual, and she looked down the bar to a man three stools away to her right. Not bad. Mid-thirties, thick, dark hair, serious around his eyes, but his lips looked scrumptious.

He looked at her, as if he sensed her appraisal. He moved with fluid ease to sit beside her, his smile confident and warm. “I’m Derrick,” he said. “Derrick Johns.”

“Jessie,” she nearly purred as she broke his gaze and looked down, a little shy but not sure why. His eyes were deep blue and very direct.

He tapped the bar to attract the bartender. “You work in the district?” He asked, his voice like cognac.

“No.” she lied. “I’m a stewardess.”

He grinned. “No offense, but you look smart enough I figured you’re a trader, and I thought you might have lost your job.”

She swiveled to face him, a little shaken.

He smiled. “Drink’s on me.”

They fell into easy conversation, funny, quick and intelligent. She liked talking to him. When he touched her hand as they worked on their third drink, she liked that too.

As she finished the drink, he leaned close and thrilled her. “I have a room at the Alpine. Will you go back there with me?”

She found exhaling hard all of a sudden. “Sure,” she said, trying for a gaze that left no mistaking her intentions, hoping for a hard and mercenary shine. “For five hundred dollars.”

He laughed but she held her expression, the faintest twitch of a smile, exactly as she had rehearsed.

“You mean it?” Derrick remarked, his voice a little breathless. “I’ll be damned. All right. Why not? But let’s make this interesting, shall we? Five hundred cash, but you have to do whatever I say. Fair?”

She wavered and hoped her weakness didn’t show. “I don’t like pain,” she stated flatly.

“What kind of sicko do you think I am? No, no pain. Nothing bad at all. First thing is, we go someplace else. Come on.”

**

Please buy a copy of “Playing the Market” and support the voice of the 99% as it’s being expressed on Wall Street and Main Street! And isn't it fitting that it’s only 99 cents?

Carny - October 31

Angela Caperton — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:46:33 GMT

Welcome to my serial Carny! I hope you enjoy this little Halloween treat. New episodes will appear every day through October.

Step right up! For just a dime see wonders beyond imagining!

And maybe we'll let you leave with your soul...

Start on October 1

October 31

Late on Halloween morning, a clown walked through the carnival, idly among the rides, past the games of skill and chance, and down toward the sideshow. Copley watched him approach, looking up from his newspaper. He sized the guy up, eighteen, maybe nineteen, ragged clothes and oversized shoes, a red rubber nose visible at a hundred paces. The magician looked back down at the paper.

“Russian Bomb Explodes!” read the newspaper headline, and so it had.

Copley had the picture of it in his head, a ball bright as the sun, a sick hatching to end the world, and yet here he was, alive on a bright October morning.

He only remembered pieces of the night, but the fragments were both vivid and impossible. The morning held only a few answers and little comfort. Everything had changed. Venus ran the cooch show now, but she was just Venus, a gorgeous, stacked dancer with a gleam in her eye like she knew just what everyone wanted. Today she looked hung over, but in control. Copley’s questions would wait.

Nick. The devil. Something in him had been turned. Venus might have done it, but Copley also remembered that he had heard Nick ask sometime in the rapturous night, “Do you believe I really wanted this to end?” Copley understood that the devil was one of them now. He didn’t have to like it, but he understood it. Nick had moved into Boss Willy’s trailer but that was a sham. Everyone knew Copley was the ran the show now.

The time of the magician had come. At least that’s what Pan said.

Where was Pan? When the orgy had wound down, Pan had pulled his dripping prick from the devil’s ass and kissed him, long and lasciviously. That was the last thing Copley remembered. He hadn’t seen Pan since. Copley hoped the demigod would be back though he had a hunch Pan had plans of his own.

The clown shuffled his big feet, shy at the last approach. Copley crossed his ankles, leaned back, and watched the kid.

Everything had changed. His veins pulsed with real magic he could call upon whenever he needed it; he had no doubt about it. Or you’re just a con man falling for his own con, he thought, the voice sounding a lot like Nick’s. He laughed, shaking his head. The devil wasn’t on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. He had the devil selling cotton candy outside the ring toss.

The clown stopped in mid-step, spooked, like a deer about to run.

“Morning,” Copley said.

“You guys need a clown?” The kid was tall and built like a farmhand, but there was grace in his posture. His face had character but he looked goofy too.

Copley considered the question. He saw something of the rituals ahead of them all, the turning of times and tides. “Sure,” he said. “We can use a clown, if you’re funny.”

“I can juggle.”

Copley figured that might be handy too. “What makes you want to join the carnival?"

The clown shrugged and Copley saw the answer in his greasepaint-lined eyes. “Magic.”

“Okay,” Copley nodded. “You’re in. We got a lot of ground to cover before winter season ends. This year, we may go right on through to spring.”

~End~

Carny - October 30

Angela Caperton — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 17:45:06 GMT

Start at October 1

October 30

Pan remembered deep green fields and the promise of wine-dark seas. Inside the smoky tent, anything seemed possible. Midnight had passed a long time ago and the tip had grown, a rowdy surge of men and women filled the midway. The game jockeys played for real money and when the rubes’ money ran out, they played for kisses.

One turn of the Ferris wheel, every car had held a fucking couple.

Ritual. Renewal.

A shield against the devil’s star.

Pan didn’t completely understand the metal and menace, but knew that unless he and Copley and the others performed their rite, the devil would lay his egg. The egg would hatch. This wasn’t Mars, it wasn’t Hades, although this Nick borrowed the pantomime of older gods. The world would cease to be and the devil would win.

Forever.

So Pan danced on the stage, borrowed an instrument Ned called a harmonica and he played wild music, hooves stomping, bringing the revel to fullness. Pan smelled the wet heat of every woman in the tent, a mixture rich as spring earth. He would fuck them all before morning – most of the men too -- when the rite had been performed.

Copley stood proud, the magician, Pan’s priest. He talked to the sky as much as he talked to the sweaty, lusting crowd, “Out of the Golden Age, Pan returns, the wonder of the wild places, the piper, the terror…know Pan! Know his gifts!”

Pan danced and twirled, he caught Venus up in his arms, stripped away her white veil to expose her pasties and G. She fought against him, and he savaged her with a kiss before he set her free to dance. She was as lithe as a naiad. Of all the men and women in the tent, Pan would enjoy fucking her the most.

Venus whirled and stretched, held her arched grace in ready abandon, driving the men in the crowd insane with their desire. Pan caught the town women in his web of musk and, when he danced with Venus, who was every woman, he rose with her, hard against her softness, and tasted all the joyous passion within the sea of humanity before him.

Time burned like the stub of a candle.

Pan blew his harp and danced the rite of life.

A wave of hard laughter sundered the crowd and the canvas walls shook. Pan saw them at once. Nick’s boys, sullen and clad in gray, like mold on a painted wall. The devil came in, hardly bothering to hide his nature. Pan saw him as he was, hooves and horns. He might have been Pan’s twin, but for the scowl and the lashing tail.

Pan smelled the mingled scents of lust and fear, the crowd drowned in madness. He didn’t wait, the urgency overwhelming, and tore Venus’ G away, his cock rising to the rite, ready to bring her down upon him.

Copley cried, “Behold Pan, he is brighter than death!”

“Stop this degeneracy,” the devil commanded and voices in the crowd roared objection. Somebody threw a punch. Pan faltered, his stumble a clash of hoof to floor. He felt the exhalation of the tent, as though a single being breathed through the steady sureness of a canvas lung.

Venus held tightly to him as Nick climbed to the stage.

“This stops now,” Nick ordered, showing a badge of some kind to the crowd. The crowd largely ignored him, their cries wilder. The air smelled of semen and sweet spice. Buddy appeared on the stage, dressed in a fur loincloth, Mina, Maggie, Big Mike joining them.

Oh yes, Pan thought to himself, proud. "The festival begins now."

“You’re too late,” the devil cried, cackling, and caught Pan in a firm grip, a razor blade of keen obsidian pressed against his throat, the edge of darkness eager for his blood. “We have just enough time to skin you.”

Copley tried to reach him, but Nick’s goons held him. Pan regretted that the mage’s magic was still so weak, and he understood then that the devil’s victory was assured as the blade bit, drawing sacred blood. He began to slip away again into the dark years, into the awful place he only now remembered.

Why had this time, this passage, been so achingly brief?

“You stop.” Venus’ voice rang with irresistible authority. Even at the edge of sacrifice, Pan heard and could not disobey.

When he opened his eyes, he saw an egg of light above black, cold seas, then he saw the balance. The terrible fire was nothing. Nothing at all.

Venus held Nick’s chin in her hand as the devil knelt before her.

She beckoned Pan to approach while Copley talked to the crowd.

“See the goddess,” he cried, his voice gone a little shrill. “Venus! She conquers the devil himself!”

Pan whooped. How could he not have recognized her? His goddess. “Venus,” he cried, capering.

The crowd was well beyond hearing him, insane with desire and love for one another, for Pan, Venus, the devil. Together with the mage, the dwarf, all of them, even the devil, all together for the next two hours, they joyfully practiced rites to save the world.

On to October 31

Copyright 2011 Angela Caperton. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

Carny - October 29

Angela Caperton — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:17:21 GMT

October 29

Morningside.

Fucking, bloody Morningside.

Copley’s eyes burned and he could hardly look at the sunlight on the floor of his trailer. Last town on the tour and a miracle the show had made it out of Dirk’s Corner at all. Nearly half of the roustabouts, agents, and jockeys had quit or disappeared. Boss Willy and Miss Fe were in jail.

After the box opened and Pan had failed to appear, the townies had gone wild. There had been fights, a couple rapes, and the city’s domino parlor had been burned to the ground. Most of the bad trouble happened away from the carnival as the mob had run in all directions, chasing something Copley guessed they couldn’t even name.
He knew what it was though. Magic. Real magic.

Although Willy had been locked up, Copley guessed he’d be let out soon enough unless he died from official jailhouse misadventure. The worst crimes had been committed by Dirk’s Corners’ leading citizens and the community pillars of several other towns. He figured some of the lawmen would just as soon have buried the whole show in the woods if they had thought they could get away with it.

Instead they locked up Willy and Fe and told Wonderland to hit the road right away. There had been no shows at all that day, and just as well. With Pan gone, Copley’s act was back to making ghosts out of handkerchiefs and pretending to saw Maggie or Venus in half. He had no heart for that.

They had driven the thirty miles from Dirk’s Corners to Morningside like the survivors of a disaster. Copley knew that every man and woman who remained with the little caravan believed their magic was gone, that what had happened – the ecstasy and the awful things – had gone from them, that they somehow must carry on without it.

He looked at his watch. The show would open for its final weekend in just an hour or so, and Copley had a vision that all of them – Buddy, Mina, Venus, and all the others – they were just gaffs, things made of hide and wax to deceive the foolish into believing miracles. How could they go on?

He had drunk a fuck of a lot of Beam just to put himself to sleep.

Copley left his trailer and walked through the bright, cold air to the mess tent, where Venus and Buddy sat, sipping hot soup. He took as much of the thick broth as he thought he could stomach and sat down on a bench. A newspaper lay at hand. He picked it up like it was a viper.

“Russians Drop Super H Bomb Tomorrow!” the headline screamed.

“Fucking Reds,” he said, scanning the article. There was no hope. The goddamn bomb was going to go off, and it might destroy the world. Fine, he thought, it might save him a fucking lot of trouble trying to pick up the pieces of his own world.

“I can run the tilt-a-whirl,” Buddy volunteered. Copley realized, with Willy in the pokey, the dwarf and everyone else looked to him as boss.

“Yeah, okay.” Copley told Buddy. “Have Sam and that new guy, Albert…he’s still here, right? Let them work outside the alibi counters. They can run two games each, unless we get busy, then have ‘em stick to the best one and charge double.”

“We’ll do the museum as the front end to the magic show and alternate with the girls. Venus, you run the girl show tonight, shows on the quarters. You and Maggie and that big girl. I’ll talk inside … but I’ll need to work outside some too. Jesus, we need more guys.”

Venus’ voice drifted over him, faint and wistful. “That’s not what we need.”

Copley finished his soup and tried not to look at the paper. He slurped the last dredges from his bowl before the dancer and the dwarf could say anything more. He pushed away from the table without another glance at them, then shouldered his way back out into the bright afternoon.

At first, he saw only the shape, black and shimmering, as though the sunlight did not quite shine upon him, a resolute figure approaching with certain steps.

In the light of day, Pan looked almost human, his beard dark brown and curly, his horns hidden by a wide-brimmed straw hat. He wore a baggy coat and trousers he must have snatched off a scarecrow. Only his feet betrayed him. Unshod hooves made circles in the dust as he caught Copley in a hug.

Pan smelled like sex and new earth and Copley’s cock grew hard.

“Hey, boss,” the demigod said, laughing. “Are you ready to make real magic?”

On to October 30

Copyright 2011 Angela Caperton. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

Carny - October 28

Angela Caperton — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 23:25:29 GMT

Start at October 1

October 28

Every soul he touched wanted passion, wanted freedom. The waves of their desire coated his ancient soul like winter-thick honey. They all knew what they desired, but the chain that restrained them was a notion of sin, a word so incomprehensible it made Pan’s head hurt. Yet this world was full of the fear of it. Maybe the banked fires had burned in other ways. He saw light where no flame gave heat, chariots on the roads with no oxen to draw them. Not a bad world, and one where he would find immense joy in his new life.

To celebrate, he kissed the clit of a gray-haired wife, her body lined with marks from the children she had borne, her husband’s rough use, and the damage of fifty years of mortal life. He kissed the tight knot again and smiled as she trembled with another hard orgasm. There it was -- passion untold. He knew her life, knew the joys she had shared with him this night were rare. Her first orgasm had bloomed long ago, given to her by a beautiful black man when she was only eighteen. Emanuel, the black man, had been passing through on his way to a land called California and she had sheltered him and given him food. Pan felt the man’s desire across the years – the ache of loneliness assuaged on a road to the mountains and the ocean beyond it, fields of sunny dream. Someday Pan would go to California too. He thought he would like such a place.

He bit the woman’s fleshy thigh and felt all her climaxes, every one she had ever known. So few. So few. The sweet vibration of a borrowed tool -- a lawnmower, whatever that was – and one night when she had been alone, the wanton rubbing of her pussy on the arm of the living room couch, and twice with her man.

On this bright morning, Pan had brought her to the peak with barely a flick of his tongue, and when he lifted her and slid his cock into her, her cry nearly made him weep with their mingled joy. He fucked her, long and hard and, when the woman’s legs encircled Pan and she ground against him, her thick-chested husband came too, his seed filling Pan’s mouth, lost to all sense of the world.

When Pan left them that night, man and wife were tangled in each other, exhausted and happy. A good beginning, Pan thought. Lust never faltered, but the world vibrated with many other flames that burned anew in him. He took the couple’s bottle of whiskey, savoring the smoky acid, and walked away from the farmhouse, the brisk air chill on his damp chest, under starlight holes in the black ceiling of night. He stretched his will up, up, to the sliver of moon, comforted by the pull, and he ached for Selene’s touch as he had known her long ago.

Ahead of him, out of the darkness, music called. Pan heard a scatter of weird, lute-string chords and tinny drumming. Music, yes, but like none he had ever heard. The rhythms pounded, quick as fear-struck hearts, and the song’s words spoke of love. He danced a few capering steps, guzzled the whiskey and tossed the bottle. The crash made a percussive note in musical discord with the riotous song. He glanced again at the moon and spat the last bit of whiskey into the sky. “Cold wench.”

He snorted, steam coming from his nose and he jumped a low fence, clicking his hooves together before heading toward the music.

A circle of cars pointed toward a burning fire, young men and women dancing to the crazy tune, drinking, playing, and Pan’s heart expanded. Home. This was home. Wine and song, women and men, touching and laughing, open to the sweetest wonders of life. This wild gathering in the middle of a field was born of nature, not by Pan’s imposed will, nor by his overwhelming desire. This was the work of man and woman alone. How he loved them!

“Pretty isn’t it?”

Pan didn’t turn. “It’s not your doing.”

“No, but I’ll take the credit. They blame me for everything, even the cruelest jokes of their precious Creator.” Nick handed Pan a flask.

Pan watched the fire and the young human animals at play, ignoring the devil’s offering.

“They’ll skin you again, you know. They don’t know how to be grateful for freedom, especially here. This land thrives on hypocrisies and the condemnation of pleasures. You, my dear friend, are more a threat to them than I am.” Nick chuckled and sipped.

“I am no threat.”

A powerful hand slapped him on the back. “You little goat, are carnality and ferocity, raw desire. That bomb they all fear is more welcome than your sexuality.”

“You are darkness, violence.” He replied and looked at Nick, trying not to give his enemy the satisfaction of a snarl. “You are hatred.”

Nick grinned. “And I am justified in more ways than you can fuck. Come with me, my friend. These people, they don’t deserve you. They’ll turn on you and it will be more than your skin this time – this I promise.”

“Your promise is hollow.”

Nick’s smile curled Pan’s stomach. “It’s a promise as bright as a shattered sun. The fire is coming, my friend. Stick with me and we’ll watch them burn together.”

On to October 29

Copyright 2011 Angela Caperton. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

Carny - October 27

Angela Caperton — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00:44 GMT

Start at October 1

October 27

Copley’s clothes clung to him, wet with sweat. He had discarded his coat long ago and worked his act with rolled sleeves. No one cared about the magic. He only made the motions and talked the patter to give the tip time to breathe, or to hold their collective breath for the moment of revelation.

The rush had started even before the carnival opened, the parking lot full and all the roads for a mile in any every direction clogged with cars. Jostling, laughing knots of people filled the midway, young men and their girls, old husbands and wives, lonesome farmers. There were Negroes among the crowd. Boss Willy had frowned but allowed them to come in.

Thick lines queued outside all the tents, the girls and the museum, the snake show and the fortune teller. The ride jockeys and the alibi booth agents could hardly take the dimes and quarters fast enough. By sunset, there must have been a thousand people on the lot and a hundred of them were milling around Copley’s bally, waiting for the first performance of Professor Dread and his Demons of Desire.

He knew what was happening. Pan had told him and he believed it, because he felt Pan’s power too. Everyone did.

Copley did his 7:30 show, making the ghosts dance, building up the appearance of Pan at the climax, but he knew it didn’t matter a rat’s ass what he said or did. He saw the upturned faces, the wide eyes, and he knew what they were waiting for.

Outside, people were screaming, insane with ecstasy and delightful fear.

When Copley opened the box and Pan stepped out onto the stage, brighter than the floods, the tent full of people worshipped him, arms outstretched, the moment perfect and radiant.

Copley’s cock felt as long as his arm and he knew the same was true of every man in the tent. The women, the women smelled like musk and Copley knew their thighs were slick beneath their dresses.

Pan opened his arms, palms upward in benediction, his eyes shining bright and black.

Something heavy hit the tent wall and everything shook. The canvas lurched sickeningly in the swaying light. The screams outside changed too. Copley heard angry voices and wondered if this too was the fulfillment of Pan’s prophecy.

A police siren echoed, rapidly growing closer. Another followed it, then another.

The crowd had shifted, restless in the swaying tent, every eye on Pan. People cried and moaned. Here and there, couples began to touch. Copley sensed the sacredness of the moment, but part of him wanted to turn the tip and be done with all of it. He considered yelling “fire” just to make them leave, but he only watched as Pan led them out, prancing, kissing women and men, into the night, laughing and wild.

Outside, two cars were burning. Smoke stung Copley’s eyes and he saw fire reflected in the sky above the parking lot. A tangle of battling men surged among the packed crowd. A hundred voices screamed in pain and terror. Men and women in every possible combination fought and frolicked and fucked.

Copley saw brown and khaki, cops and state troopers among the fighters and the fuckers. A gunshot split the crowd’s noise but the roar never faltered. He caught Pan by the arm and pulled him toward the bally.

They watched together, the magician and the demi-god, a surging tide of madness as a thousand people struggled and coupled. Copley thought he saw Nick drowning in the crowd, but he could not be certain.

Now, hours later, he stood on the stage, most of the crowd gone, though dozens still gathered around, eager for one more miracle. Copley heard the idiotic Alpine music from the tilt-a-whirl. He knew there would be a shitstorm tomorrow. Cops had been hurt. Well, maybe not hurt.

He wanted a drink. Just one more show to get through and then he’d drown himself.

Just one more spiel. “And here, ladies and gentleman, is the gate where Great Pan enters this world.” He tapped the wooden chest. Jimmy had painted it like a sacred tomb. “He has come to us to reveal the terrible mysteries of life, the truth of our natures and the glory. He has come to bring us freedom.”

Not Copley’s fucking words but something that spoke through him. Truth, he supposed. One more trick and Pan would lead the tip out again and Copley would be finished so he could get drunk, worship Pan, find Venus, and fuck her until they both ached. He wanted all those things as much as he had ever wanted anything.

“Io, Pan,” he cried. “Come, Pan!” Copley opened the sarcophagus only to find it empty. He looked down at the trap door and the darkness beneath it, feeling the absence and the presence, and turned, smiling to the crowd.

“The Great God Pan,” he told them, triumphant and a little relieved. “He walks among you now.”

On to October 28

Copyright 2011 Angela Caperton. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

Carny - October 26

Angela Caperton — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:05:28 GMT

Start here for October 1

October 26

A cloak would hide Pan’s smile. The trailer window flew open and the scent of livestock and rich autumn earth blew in. Far from old, uneven roads, in a wagon bound for the arbor, where grapes left on vines waited for the first winter frost to seal their thickened juice. That was what he wanted, to pluck the last bit of life from the vines. Grapes left behind always made the sweetest wine.

Andrea and Andre were hardly more than names now, though Pan remembered their lives like stories told a thousand times. This land was called America. America had never heard his music, had hardly felt the beat of passion, a hard land settled by Puritans, too busy for wine and Pan’s song.

He missed his pipes, the music he made that called men and women to him. His cock began to fill as he remembered the dance and how it would end among the grass and wildflowers, his lover sweating beneath him, her eyes – or his – rolled white in surrender. Or the worshipers with hungry mouths, driven to gluttony by his tune. How many tongues had tasted his spend, the sacrament of shared ecstasy?

The speaker above him began to blare, jagged music broken at its edges, but enough to make Pan smile. He sang with it, a keening whistle, and sent his desire out into the world. Beyond the open window, he saw the rapid passage of farmland and field, humble houses, and staring faces. A strong young man atop a tired mare. A mother at a metal cooking fire, her hand straying to her breast. He felt their attention and spoke to them, felt their fear and their desire.

Come. Come to me.

Miles passed so quickly as he rode in this miraculous truck. He counted the minutes, still singing, casting his net wider. A soldier, merchants, husbands, wives, children. He savored the warmth of their lives, basked a bit in the simple joy, but then he touched something cold and terrible, like a clot of mud in the sea of restless desire.

Judgment and punishing fire, the damnation of man. Pan remembered the name Andre had known, the demon who had bargained with him. Nick. He had found Nick.

The vehicle stopped and Pan heard Copley dismount from the truck’s cab and walk around to open the doors. When Pan stopped singing, Nick faded into a shiver.

Starlight streamed through the opening gate. Then Copley was framed against the sky. “We’re here. We’ll get your trailer set up. All to yourself. You’ll stay out of sight till the show.”

The magician eyed Pan, and knew the man was waiting for him to answer. The magician did not know his own destiny. Too bad. Pan stretched and stood, walking to the back of the truck and jumped lightly to the ground. Copley took a step back. Pan tasted the magician’s fear and licked his lips.

“I will stay, but I will not be alone.”

Copley remained silent a moment. Pan forgave him.

“You want Venus? I don’t know, don’t know how much more she can take.”

“Venus will come, but so will others. They will not be turned away. You will see tonight. There will be a multitude.”

“We can’t have a riot around the trailer,” Copley said.

“The crowd will fill your market, will flood your tents, and they will come to me here, for my pleasure. And theirs.”

“Yeah… but you’ll stay under wraps, right?”

Pan had no time for Copley’s question so he ignored it. Something loomed in the afternoon air, outside, behind Copley, and closing on them.

“Nick is coming soon,” Pan said. “And he will have a legion with him.”

Carny - October 25

Angela Caperton — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:44:42 GMT

Start here for October 1

October 25

Late morning, Copley took the Buick and drove half a mile to the Crallwell Town Library. A plain woman behind the desk offered to help him, giving him a look that said, “Don’t let me catch you sleeping behind the shelves.”

“Mythology,” he said. “Greeks, Romans. Like that.”

“In the 290s. Last shelf by the bottom of the staircase. I recommend Bulfinch.”

He thanked her and walked to the shelf, folding his overcoat and draping it over a chair, laying his hat in the seat. Copley wanted a drink in the worst way. He should have put a flask in his pocket.

He’d never seen anything like the shit that went on at the show last night after he’d taken the wraps off Pan. The tips were strong all night, the strongest of the season. He didn’t see how it could be…even with a dynamite attraction, word couldn’t have spread so fast, but there they were, raw-face men and homely women, some lookers too, dozens of them. Young folks and old, all lined up to see the Great God Pan. The shows had all gone pretty much the same way. Every single fucking soul had paid the extra quarter, except a handful of people who had shown him their empty pockets and who he had let in anyway. Hell, there was no reason to be greedy. Doc’s museum had made more dough last night than the games and the rides put together.

Some of the people had paid again and again. Copley knew that. First time he’d ever seen talent good enough to pull the same tip five times. In the morning, the lot lice had already queued up outside the museum or were wandering idly among the rides, even though opening was hours away. Big Mike and the boys had to run them off. Copley knew Pan was the ticket to big money, but there had to be a catch. These old books seemed like a good place to start learning what it might be.

He took four books from the shelf, including the one the librarian had recommended. In that one, he read:

Pan, the god of woods and fields, of flocks and shepherds, dwelt in grottos, wandered on the mountains and in valleys, and amused himself with the chase or in leading the dances of the nymphs. He was fond of music, and as we have seen, the inventor of the syrinx, or shepherd's pipe, which he himself played in a masterly manner. Pan, like other gods who dwelt in forests, was dreaded by those whose occupations caused them to pass through the woods by night, for the gloom and loneliness of such scenes dispose the mind to superstitious fears. Hence sudden fright without any visible cause was ascribed to Pan, and called a Panic terror.

In another book, he read about Tiresias who became a woman and then a man again, and lots more, about satyrs and nymphs, and guys getting skinned alive. An hour flew by, then two.
Finally, in a book about the end of the age of myths, he read:

As for death among such beings, I have heard the words of a man who was not a fool nor an impostor. The father of Aemilianus the orator, to whom some of you have listened, was Epitherses, who lived in our town and was my teacher in grammar. He said that once upon a time in making a voyage to Italy he embarked on a ship carrying freight and many passengers. It was already evening when, near the Echinades Islands, the wind dropped, and the ship drifted near Paxi. Almost everybody was awake, and a good many had not finished their after-dinner wine. Suddenly from the island of Paxi was heard the voice of someone loudly calling Thamus, so that all were amazed. Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, not known by name even to many on board. Twice he was called and made no reply, but the third time he answered; and the caller, raising his voice, said, “When you come opposite to Palodes,a announce that Great God Pan is dead.” … Thamus made up his mind that if there should be a breeze, he would sail past and keep quiet, but with no wind and a smooth sea about the place he would announce what he had heard. So, when he came opposite Palodes, and there was neither wind nor wave, Thamus from the stern, looking toward the land, said the words as he had heard them: 'Great Pan is dead.' Even before he had finished there was a great cry of lamentation, not of one person, but of many, mingled with exclamations of amazement.

The writer said that this story marked the last cry of paganism in the new world of Christ and the Holy Saints.

And if he’s back, Copley thought, what the fuck does that mean?

“Sir,” he looked up from the book. The plain woman from the library desk stood over him. On her feet, she wasn’t bad looking. Under a bulky blouse and out of a frumpy skirt, she might’ve looked damned good. Copley had a vivid image of her stretched out naked on the library table and him plowing her like cornfield. “You’re with that carnival, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I wasn’t out there last night, but I heard.”

“Yeah?”

She laid her warm hand on his. “Oh, I’ll be there tonight. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Carny - October 24

Angela Caperton — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 22:32:05 GMT

Start here for October 1

October 24

Flashes of color and sound filled his memory, the carnival family staring and whispering behind their hands, Boss Willy’s stunned face, insistently scratching his thinning hair as Copley seduced him with the possibilities. “Willy, it’ll be the greatest attraction of any carnival on the circuit. They’ll come for miles! We could charge a dollar for special shows!”

Andre smelled Willy’s surrender. “The Living Devil. Yeah, that’ll set them on fire!”

Copley glanced at Andre and shook his head. “Not Devil. God. The Great God Pan.” Copley didn’t wait. “Jimmy! We need banners! Five of them, two for the entrances and more for the tent, front and sides. Make ‘em lurid…”

They gave Andre his own trailer, three of the ride jockeys displaced to a town motel until something better could be worked out. When he left his trailer, Copley made him stay out of sight. Andre was okay with that, staying backstage, learning how to walk on his new legs. He had slept dreamlessly and awakened to look in the mirror and try to understand what he had become.

Something new, yet terribly old.

He remembered things beyond his own lifetime, wine dark seas and verdant groves, the fat thighs of nymphs gripping his head as he ploughed them with his tongue, the peach butts of shepherds eager for his blessing.

That afternoon, Venus came to see him, to stare at his horns and his furred legs. He smiled wolfishly when her gaze hung on his cock, semi erect and worthy of a demigod.

She jumped when the long, red shaft emerged from the tangled thatch on his loins. He would have fucked her then and there and that would only be the start, but she backed out of the tent before he could mount her.

Still, he had smelled how wet she was and he knew it was only a matter of time.

Jimmy had finished the banners, though Andre had not seen them, and by the evening, the Great God Pan was ready for his unveiling. He hoped the canvas paintings did him justice. Copley had rigged up a tunic that left most of Andre’s shaggy chest bare and covered his cock, though Andre guessed the late night crowds might get a peak at that too, and tonight he would be the blow-off in the Gallery of Wonders, only one more quarter to see the living spirit of the Athenian age.

What would the rubes do? The show folks had accepted him quickly, but they were accustomed to strange malformations and clever deceptions. Only Copley knew the truth, and Buddy the dwarf, but even Buddy seemed to think what had happened in Doc’s cabinet was some kind of trick.

Andre – Pan – waited in near darkness on a platform behind a canvas barrier by the exit of Doc’s museum, screened from the pickled punks and the little stages where Buddy and Mina did their acts. Copley would lead the crowd back here and collect the quarters. Those who paid could step behind the panel; those who didn’t could find their own way out the way they came.

The tip was big from what he could hear, many voices, the shuffling sound of people in no hurry; Copley’s pitch weaving a fisherman’s net to pull them in.

Even behind the barrier, he felt the heat of the crowd kissing his skin, the tremble of unfocused fear plucking at his nerves.

People were such tiny beings, so simple and yet tenderest meat for his feast. A wink would buy their trust, and the few who resisted him would eventually be the marrow that fueled his eternity. When he spread his arms and stared them down, then he would know the ones worth keeping, those touched by the spark of true knowing. He smelled them, out there, almost to him now, the few who would fuck and dance and scream with the exuberance of life ripe to bursting.

They were the sweetest wine.

Waves crashed against ancient stones, virgins danced in linen shifts stained with the juices of pomegranates and plums. He tasted the richness, savored their warm flesh, his cock the lance of myth and decadence, his ass and mouth the chalice to milk the come of kings. He’d taken thousands in his seasons, pipes whistling seduction, his goatish form forbidden and alluring.

He was Pan, beyond morality, the enemy of refined civilization. He was lust and creativity and pleasure. He was want.

The skin fit perfectly, his true self once again. He didn’t begrudge his weaker human self, the face he had cast aside. Time. He just needed a little more time. He knew Copley was uncertain of the totality of the metamorphosis. He still treated Andre as though the skin might come off, as though the magic could be reversed. What would Copley do when he reached to remove it from Andre only to find there was no Andre to remove it from, only him, only Pan? What delicious chaos would follow then?

Beyond the barrier, he heard the end of the pitch. “…at tremendous risk, we went to a forest at the foot of Mount Olympus itself, where we found him and persuaded him to return with us. You know how we pay him, right?” Copley asked the crowd. “No? We give him a virgin a night. Do any of you ladies qualify?” The men and women in the tip laughed. “Last chance,” Copley said. “Just one more quarter for the most amazing thing you will ever see. Thank you, thank you.”

Coins clinked and Pan heard the crowd hold a collective breath as Copley opened the path into the space where wonder awaited. Only the shadows cloaked Pan now, as Copley wound up.

“Pan, ladies and gentlemen! The trickster, the lustful satyr of myth and legend lives among us again! Who will know his lustful kiss? Who will bow before his divine power?”

The light fell on him and the crowd – perhaps 30 people, more women than men – stood around, some of them close enough to touch him, though they drew back quickly, making worshipful space around him.

Pan regarded them calmly, his nostrils flaring at the scent of their arousal and their fear. None of them laughed now. He felt the quickening of their hearts, the stiffness in the pants of the men, the wet trickle down feminine thighs, and he laughed. Three of them he marked with his gaze and the serpentine press of his will – a pretty girl, a hard-looking matron, and a broad-chested farmer.

He would find these three later. They would come to him when the lot was dark and the shows closed.

Then he would show them pleasures unknown for more than two thousand years.

Copyright 2011 Angela Caperton. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.

Carny - October 23

Angela Caperton — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:01:46 GMT

Start here for October 1

October 23

Copley bought a newspaper at a little drug store in Crallwell. He read the headlines with nervous anxiety. The goddamned Russians appeared to be going ahead with their plans. They’d shot off almost a bomb a day and were still planning their blockbuster at the end of the month. Some British scientist was warning that the bomb might set the air on fire and destroy the world.

Copley tried to imagine that, the whole world burning up. He’d had some practice with miracles lately and guessed anything might be possible, even the end of the world. Where would people be then? Heaven? Hell? He had some personal, recent evidence of devils, but angels seemed unlikely.

He finished his lunch and walked down a brick street to the lot where Big Mike and the boys were finishing the set-up. Buddy greeted him from the bally of the magic show. “Willy is still pissed,” the dwarf warned him. “Says he had to pay the sheriff a hundred bucks just to set up today. Said the cop called it insurance and warned him that, if the girls don’t keep their clothes on, he’ll roust everybody.”

“Just too much good news,” Copley said, pushing into the tent. He had the devil skin hanging on a headless clothes dummy behind the stage and Andre was waiting there. “You try it on?” Copley asked.

“Waited for you. How’s this trick going to work?” Andre said. Buddy hung around and listened too.

“It’s a quick switch. We put the skin in the box. You’re under the stage. When I close the coffin and start my spiel, we’ll have music and I’ll talk loud to cover any noise you make. You climb up through the stage trap. You know where it is, right?”

Andre nodded.

“You’ll be inside the box then and you’ll have less than five minutes to put the skin on. It goes on like a cape with a hood.” He handed Andre a latex mask that he’d molded himself, a crude, brutish face with a curving nose, angry brows, and a goatish beard. “Wear this too. When I finish the spiel and open the box, you come out like a mad bull, glare at the tip and make a lunge at ‘em, like you’re going to leap off the stage. The lights’ll go out then and you go back down through the trap to hide while we work the blackout. Got it?”

The devil skin hung on the headless dummy beside the stage, looking more than ever like a living thing, even though Copley had pulled all the stuffing out of it. He noticed the way Andre kept staring at it and he wondered just what was going on inside the guy who’d been a girl. He felt a stab of guilt at what he was about to do, but he knew in his heart, it was the right thing.

Copley didn’t even have to ask if Andre was ready. He knew. He stepped to the back of the stage and lifted the skin off the clothes dummy, held it for a moment looking at it. Copley saw him shudder, but Andre was game, as ready for this as Copley was. Andre slipped the skin around his shoulders. Copley saw his hands were shaking.

It fit him. Copley had known it would. Andre put on the rubber mask and pulled the horned cowl up. The latex visage filled the hollowed out place where the satyr’s face should have been. The effect was about as perfect as Copley had hoped. He needed to figure out a way to make hoofs and maybe some gloves for Andre’s hands, but in a dark tent, just before the blackout, Andre would appear transformed.

Copley took the skin back, thinking that Andre seemed almost reluctant to relinquish the shaggy black pelt. “Get under the stage,” he said, “and we’ll run through this. Keep the mask on. That’ll save time.”

Andrew obeyed him, the latex fright face hiding any feelings he might have revealed. Copley climbed onto the stage and closed the coffin.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, addressing Buddy. “Here in my hands I hold the very heart of darkness, the skin of something unspeakable. Some say it’s the devil’s skin, but who knows? It was found long ago on a mountain in Germany…”

He opened the box and hung the skin inside it as he rambled on. After Copley closed the door, he heard Andre climbing up through the trap but in a crowded tent with the PA and the phonograph playing mood music – Copley was thinking, maybe that Bald Mountain piece – no one would hear him. He spieled for a few more minutes, talking about sin and punishment and how the devil was lord of the world in this season of autumn. He’d have to see how the spiel played before he’d refine it, but he could talk about damnation better than most preachers.

“And…tonight, the devil has returned to claim his skin…”

Copley swung the box open, looking down to be sure the door cleared, so the first thing he saw were Andre’s feet.

“The fuck?” he thought. “Where’d the hooves come from?”

Carny - October 22

Angela Caperton — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 18:50:14 GMT

Start here for October 1

October 22

The day was slow. The riot in the girl show had fired up the local preachers, so by the afternoon, Andre figured everyone had been warned away from potential mortal sin at the carnival. Copley said such warnings were usually good for business once the heat died down, but the crowds sure were staying home today.

Maybe it was the thought of being peppered with Madame Fe’s buckshot that kept them away.

Whatever the reason for the thin tip, the bulls, county and town cops, outnumbered the citizens by the time the sun set. Seven or eight of the big men huddled near the burger stand, taking turns to walk the grounds, leering at the girls and glaring at the men. They ordered food extravagantly and nobody asked them to pay.

Everyone knew there’d be no shows tonight and, by nine, most of the booths and tents started the tear-down.

Andre mostly kept to himself, remembering the day before. He had seen the black car, like an immense, prowling insect, raising a dust cloud above the bare dirt parking lot. He had wandered over, shivering a little in the chill air and leaned on the door, surprised to see Nick himself at the wheel, no sign of his stooges.

“Get in.”

Andre obeyed without hesitation, climbing through the oddly hinged door to sit in the front seat. Would the black metal beetle swallow him whole? The car smelled like leather polish and spilled wine.

Nick drove fast, out of the little town and up into a wild, hilly land. They left the main road and followed rutted dirt to a bluff overlooking a creek and miles of wooded countryside, colored with autumn’s palette. Below them, the town of Messer’s Grove looked like a model on a toy train track. He saw the clearing where the carnival had pitched.

“You’re not like them,” Nick said.

“No shit. I was a girl a week ago.”

“That’s not what I mean. You are not like them. You’re much more. You feel it, you taste it. Listen. Smell. You’ve just forgotten how. They’re cattle. You’re a wolf, and wolves hunt, kill. Take. Remember that.”

“I know who you are,” Andre taunted, his voice gone childish. “But what am I?”

“You always laughed too much,” Nick said. He took a flask from his hip pocket and unscrewed its cap.

Andre took a drink. Then he took another one. Always, he thought and shivered.

They talked awhile longer. Nick had made him an offer and Andre had turned it down. Nick didn’t seem to be mad, just acted like he’d expected to be disappointed. Like it had happened before.

Always.

When Nick drove him back to the fair after nine that night, Andre’s heart had raced with strange dread. Venus was in trouble. He knew it somehow, so he wasn’t surprised when angry figures ran past him, fleeing from something behind them.

Turned out it was Fe, armed with a double-barrel loaded with rock salt. She tossed Andre a pistol. “You know how to shoot? Some of those bums may be back. There’s real bullets in that, so be careful where you point it.”

By then, there was no one left to shoot though. The rubes had scattered like rabbits.

Copley had been surly when Andre found him, but the mob hadn’t done more than black his eye and break up the furniture some. Venus slept in Madam Fe’s trailer that night, scratched and bruised, added mementos to those he had given her in the back of the truck.

By sunset the next day, Boss Willy was pissed. Between the fire and the riot, he had reason to be. Willy stormed and stomped, snapping at the ride jockeys and talkers alike, but he was especially hard on Copley. “One more time,” he snarled, “and you’re out. You too!” he spat at Andre.

Andre didn’t move, but only looked down at the man. He felt the coldness of his own gaze, saw the sudden uncertainty in Boss Willy’s eyes, his words trailing away. Andre’s palm pulsed, as if Willy’s living heart beat within it. He curled his fingers and Willy’s face turned white.

The carny boss walked away, staggering a little, and disappeared behind a tent. Andre turned to Copley. “We ready to tear down?”

“Where the fuck did you go yesterday?” Copley sounded jealous.

“Nick.”

“What the fuck did he want?”

“I think you know. You knew I went with him. I can tell.” He looked at Copley with the same cool gaze. Andre’s skin flushed with Copley’s mood. The magician wasn’t afraid. He was angry and horny and a little drunk. Andre’s cock twitched as vivid images of fucking Copley flashed through his mind, the Andrea memory vivid and hot. How would it be now to fuck Copley’s mouth or his ass?

Copley ran both his hands through his hair before he looked at Andre again. “We’ve fucked, you know that, right? We can make up for it though. It’s going to take something special, maybe dangerous. You in?”

Andre looked at Copley, inhaled the rich scent of male and whiskey. “You think I’m ready?”

Copley looked down at the ground for a moment. “Yeah. Nick thinks so too, doesn’t he?”

Are they ready? The question hovered between them.

“Yes. I guess so, then.” Andre said, his breath a whisper.

“Yeah. That skin and you, you’re tied. I’m not sure why or how, but we need to see this through.”

“Do you think I’m a guy, or a girl?” He had to ask, had to know where Copley’s feelings tended.

Copley’s silence stretched. He looked at his shoes again, at the dusty ground. “I think you’re you. Guy, girl – you’re you.”

“That’s cheap, Ned.”

Copley looked at Andre, his gaze as sincere as gold, then slapped his thigh and laughed. “Welcome to the carnival.”